On Thu, Sep 03, 2015 at 06:36:39PM +0100, KatolaZ wrote:

[cut]

>
> Sorry guys, I didn't get through the whole thread, but I wanted to say
> just one obvious thing: if your program works correctly, then it is
> *very* difficult (if not impossible) to create and leave zombies
> around. If the program that fork()s does call wait() properly, no
> zombies can remain anywhere. A zombie is just a process which has died
> and is waiting there for its parent to call the damn wait().
>
> If your code leaves zombies, then it is not working properly, and you
> should fix it before moving on.
>

OK, I admit it might had been a tad too cryptic, but my intentions
were good. What I mean is that the parent has to set a handler for
SIGCHLD, and the handler has to call wait() [or waitpid(-1, &status)]
to reap the dead child. The handler must be set *before* any of the
children is ever spawn, otherwise there is still a concrete chance to
create zombies.

If your parent process handles SIGCHLD correctly, you can also force
reaping by sending it a SIGCHLD with the kill command.

My2Cents

KatolaZ


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[ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
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